A Book and Blog about Life

The Demise of the Chinese Fortune Cookie

Today I went to Panda Express for a quick MSG filled Chinese food fix. As far as fast food goes, Panda is pretty darn good! I ordered my usual of half-and-half chou mein and fried rice, plus two sides of Broccoli Beef and General Tso’s Chicken. I’m pretty sure General Tso wasn’t really a general, but let’s give him credit anyway. I gave the friendly worker a smile and a wink, tilted my head quickly to the right to secretly give more broccoli beef, after which she added two more scoops, plus a free side of a smile. I sprinkled two packets of salty soy sauce, plus two packets of chili hot sauce. The seasoning seemed perfect. After adding a medium sized Pepsi, the bargain deal of $9.95 seemed unbeatable.

At the completion of my quick lunch, I opened my chinese fortune cookie. Eager to see what good fortune lay ahead of me, I popped the transparent plastic, yanked out the yellow colored stale cookie, and cracked it open with both hands. Of course, everyone always goes straight for the fortune text – always printed on white glossy paper about one-and-a-half inches long by about a third-of-an inch wide.

At first read, I thought, hmmm, how swell and uplifting. Then after a pause, some brains cells started cranking, and then I realized, where’s my fortune?!!

My fortune cookie read: “You are very expressive and positive in word, act and feeling”

“This aint’t no damn fortune!” I exclaimed in my head. It’s just a whipmy feel good mumbo-jumbo that everybody else gets too.

So…no fortune today.

Well, this pretty much wraps up our soft society today. Participation trophies and uplifting “fortune” cookies with penny-wise psycho-babble to make us feel soooo good about ourselves. Even the chinese have gone soft.